Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Godiva Chef Inspirations Flavors of the World

Godiva Chef InspirationsGodiva was founded in Belgium as a premium chocolatier. The company is now owned by a Turkish holding coming (Yıldız Holding) but is headquartered in New York and named after an Old English noblewoman.

The chocolate is reliably of good quality, though the prices are on the high side compared to other brands now available. I love their packaging, but I’m usually disappointed by the products as they tend to be bland.

Still, I was tempted enough by a press release about a new collaboration collection that I stopped by the local Godiva shop and picked up a box of the Chef Inspirations Flavors of the World Collection. It was $18 for a box of eight chocolates in six different flavors.

Godiva Chef Inspirations

So, six flavors and eight pieces means that I got two duplicates. The box is nice, a rounded rectangle with a plastic formed tray inside. The whole thing was shrink-wrapped and definitely fresh and flawless when I opened it. It included a little brochure that described both the chef and chocolates themselves. Here’s a little bit from the website:

Welcome our debut Flavors of the World collection—part of our new Chef Inspirations series! GODIVA Chef Chocolatiers crafted these extraordinary pieces based on inspiration from their culinary journeys in six countries - Japan, Belgium, Brazil, the United States, China, and South Africa. Let our chefs guide your through this flavor-filled adventure.

Godiva Chef Inspirations

Banana & Caramelized Coconut: Milk and white chocolate enhanced with caramelized coconut flakes, coconut milk and banana essence topped with the crunch of West African cocoa nibs. The banana flavors are sweet and have a bit of a creamy note. The coconut has a little tropical flavor, the whole thing is soft and chewy. The milk chocolate is smooth, but extremely sweet.

Godiva Chef Inspirations

Black Tea Mousse & Sichuan Pepper: Chinese Sichuan pepper flavored ganache blended with an aromatic black tea mousse and wrapped in pure Belgian dark chocolate. The mousse has a very light chocolate note but strong tannins from the black tea. I didn’t catch much of the pepper, which is too bad. But I did enjoy the tea and this one was less sweet than the others.

Godiva Chef Inspirations

Sirop de Liege with Speculoos: Classic Belgian Sirop de Liege, a pear and apple syrup, and a Speculoos cookie mousse wrapped in pure Belgian dark chocolate. This is a beautiful piece and an interesting combination. It is by far the most innovative and successful in the assortment. The speculoos is soft and creamy with a hint of gingerbread spices. The syrup is more like a fruit jelly, tart and smooth and bright, it’s really a great pairing with the dark chocolate and cookie butter. They should make this in a bar format.

Godiva Chef Inspirations

Japanese Dark Sugar Ganache: Dark chocolate layered with Kuromitsu molasses and Valencia almond praliné mixed with diced hazelnuts and Guerande sea salt. Since I started Candy Blog, I’ve been obsessed with Japanese black sugar, so this was the piece was thinking would be a home run. It’s nice, don’t get me wrong, but lacks any sort of black sugar note at all. The almond and hazelnut notes are great and the touch of sea salt does really balance the piece which gets a bit sweet, but the molasses is just so slight, I missed it. And I had three of these ... the two that came in the box and I bought one on the spot and ate it at the mall.

Brazilian Coffee Nut Praliné: Brazilian coffee and Costa Rican chocolate blended with hazelnut praliné enrobed in white chocolate and decorated with crispy chocolate confetti. As you would expect, this one was sweet with the white chocolate coating. The coffee notes a fresh and bright and the hazelnut flavors really mixed well. The little crisps on top gave it the texture it needed as a finish. Dark chocolate enrobing would have made me a bit more satisfied.

Honey Roasted Caramel: Caramel infused with hints of honey, almonds, brown sugar and condensed milk covered in milk chocolate and crunchy almonds. This sounds rather pedestrian and it really is, but that’s no reason not to appreciate it. It was chewy, but not too sticky. The honey and darker toffee notes were good and the milk chocolate brought it together well with some other dairy notes. The almonds were kind of lost, but at least fresh and crunchy.

Overall ... well, it was too sweet and not intense enough. I liked the attempts and part of the fun was just imagining what the combinations would be like. But I think I’ll stick with my local chocolatiers like Compartes or Valerie if I want to get into that price range, or just stop at See’s and be happy with their caramels.

Related Candies

  1. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Speculoos Cookie Butter Cups
  2. Godiva Cake Truffles
  3. Meiji Chelsea Kokutou Black Sugar
  4. Amsterdam on Foot: Three Chocolate Shops
  5. Godiva Spring Pearls
  6. Teuscher
  7. Lillie Belle Farms Assortment
  8. Godiva Easter Eggs


Name: Chef Inspirations Flavors of the World Collection
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Godiva
Place Purchased: Godiva (Glendale)
Price: $18.00
Size: 4 ounces
Calories per ounce: 153
Categories: Candy, Godiva, Caramel, Chocolate, Coconut, Coffee, Nuts, 7-Worth It, United States

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:01 pm Tracker Pixel for Entry     CandyReviewGodivaCaramelChocolateCoconutCoffeeNibsNuts7-Worth ItUnited States

Comments
  1. These all sound very Vosges-y to me!  I definitely want to check a couple of them out…thanks for the review!

    Comment by sairentohiru on 12/03/14 at 2:48 pm #
  2. I don’t know if, once upon a time, Godiva chocolates were amazing.  But I can’t recall ever really being impressed by the quality of the chocolate or intensity of the flavors.  I would choose See’s over Godiva any day of the week.

    Comment by Ruffy on 12/04/14 at 1:46 pm #
  3. I had these chocolates and they were the worse chocolates I have ever had by Godiva.  They were simply gross and tasteless.  Probably the best one of the bunch was the one with the speculoos.  Very disappointed with this box of chocolates.

    Comment by Buffy on 12/29/14 at 12:20 pm #
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